NYPD Cannot Profile

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Joe Kelley:
I keep imagining an Arab in the midst of 1000 ultra-Orthodox Jews in Williamsburg, or with a 1000 student rabbis in the neighborhood of Yeshiva U., and the police can search only the Jews. :rolleyes:
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Interesting comment, one Arab within one hundred orthodox jews all dressed in western clothes!!!

Now try and find the Arab!!!
 
Steve Andersen:
While profiling is a great tool that has been used in the hunt for all sorts of criminals and it has grown so popular to have spawned numerous TV shows (“Cracker” and “the Profiler” to name just two) we must remember that it is just one tool in the box

And remember, while 100% of the 9/11 bombers may have been Arab Muslim men between 18 and 34, 99.99999999% of all the other Arab Muslim men between 18 and 34 are perfectly innocent so statistically there is no difference between searching all of them or searching every Buddhist grandmother.

as for those “history tests” they’re clever and all that but they tend to ignore just one or two events now don’t they
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Steve,
You analysis appears to be based in opinion and not fact. Mathmatically speaking, using the like to the US Census data I provided in a previous link, one can show the following:
2001 US Adult Population: 207.8 million.
2001 Adults who claim to be Muslim: 1.1million
% of total population who are men between ages of 20-39: 156,000

You can continue to do random checks only of the whole population, which don’t appear to be overly productive. OR you can give an added focus on a group that has committed the vast majority of terrorist acts against the US, that is Muslim males between the ages of 18-40. If this was done, simply dividing 156,000, by 207.8 million will improve your chances of finding a terrorist by a factor of 1,333.

Are the vast majority of Muslims law abiding citizens? Absolutely yes.

Are the vast majority of terrorists Muslims? unfortunately yes.

Emotions aside, reducing the sample size of the population you are checking based on factual, demographic data, makes mathematical sense.

[Having said all of that, I do agree that any checks must be done with utmost respect and dignity towards the group that you are checking.]
 
Of course, it is impossible to do any more than a token amount of checking at suburban rail stations or on an underground network used by over 6 million people a day.

Profiling wouldn’t have prevented 9/11 and would have been extremely unlikely to have prevented Madrid or London. The terrorists, regrettably, are clever and versatile. If we assume that only young non-white males are going to be the terrorists, I fear we are in for a lot of difficulty.

Mike
 
Ani Ibi:
btw just because you filtered your disrespect through a thesaurus and came up with the word ‘mendacity’
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Why, sweet dear, no disrespect was meant at all. While the word might be unknown in the Great Frozen North, “mendacity” is commonly used he’ah in the South to soften the need to use a harsher term. Such raw vulgarity is the coin of D…ed Yankees, not of the gentle folk 'round he’ah. 🙂
 
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MikeWM:
Of course, it is impossible to do any more than a token amount of checking at suburban rail stations or on an underground network used by over 6 million people a day.

Profiling wouldn’t have prevented 9/11 and would have been extremely unlikely to have prevented Madrid or London. The terrorists, regrettably, are clever and versatile. If we assume that only young non-white males are going to be the terrorists, I fear we are in for a lot of difficulty.

Mike
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“Did y’all notice that we got six young Middle Eastern males with boxcutters tryin’ t’ board this plane? Is that a coincidence, or whut?”
 
vern humphrey said:
“Did y’all notice that we got six young Middle Eastern males with boxcutters tryin’ t’ board this plane? Is that a coincidence, or whut?”
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Boxcutters were perfectly legal to take onto the plane. That was the loophole the terrorists exploited.

Mike
 
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MikeWM:
Boxcutters were perfectly legal to take onto the plane. That was the loophole the terrorists exploited.

Mike
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My point is that if anyone had noticed that SIX young Middle Eastern men were all getting on the same plane with boxcutters, they might have pulled them aside and questioned them. But they didn’t.
 
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walstan:
Interesting comment, one Arab within one hundred orthodox jews all dressed in western clothes!!!

Now try and find the Arab!!!
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Have you seen the Orthodox Jews in Williamsburg? I stand out like a sore thumb in their midst.

What brought this to mind was a subway trip I took to Yeshiva many years ago. I was the one without a yalmulka. 😃
 
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shockerfan:
Steve,
You analysis appears to be based in opinion and not fact.
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I do that sometimes…but I don’t think I did that here
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shockerfan:
Mathmatically speaking, using the like to the US Census data I provided in a previous link, one can show the following:
2001 US Adult Population: 207.8 million.
2001 Adults who claim to be Muslim: 1.1million
% of total population who are men between ages of 20-39: 156,000

You can continue to do random checks only of the whole population, which don’t appear to be overly productive. OR you can give an added focus on a group that has committed the vast majority of terrorist acts against the US, that is Muslim males between the ages of 18-40. If this was done, simply dividing 156,000, by 207.8 million will improve your chances of finding a terrorist by a factor of 1,333.
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That’s not what I was saying

Remember, 1333 times a very small number can still be a very small number

If we take your 156,000 number and assume 1/10 of 1% are bad guys (for no other reason than the math is easy) that is 156 individuals, a 1 in a 1000 chance 0.001

But the problem is that these guys don’t have tattoos or ID cards that say “terrorist” on it so the only time a search is going to work if they are actively doing/carrying something or if they screw up. Most of the time the bad guys will look just like the good guys. So when will they screw up or be actively engaged? I don’t know but there have been only a hand full of attacks over the past several years so is it 1 in 10? 1 in 365? 1 in 1000?

Even if it is 1 in 10 that reduces your chance by another order of magnitude. So, like I said, as your chances get smaller and small they approach 0.

shockerfan said:
……Emotions aside, reducing the sample size of the population you are checking based on factual, demographic data, makes mathematical sense…….
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Agreed, but a race and ethnicity cannot be the only indicator…it is one factor in many. A better approach would be to collect passive data such as patterns of movements and use that to direct searches.
 
Steve Andersen:
Agreed, but a race and ethnicity cannot be the only indicator…it is one factor in many. A better approach would be to collect passive data such as patterns of movements and use that to direct searches.
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Agreed. At least we are still talking about improving the current system, which is to randomly check everybody, because of political correctness & not wanting to “offend” anyone.

It would seem to me that starting with race / ethnicity / religion, then moving on to other factors to continue to zero in on the target group (Al Qaida), makes sense.

Good response.
 
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Richardols:
Why, sweet dear, no disrespect was meant at all. While the word might be unknown in the Great Frozen North, “mendacity” is commonly used he’ah in the South to soften the need to use a harsher term. Such raw vulgarity is the coin of D…ed Yankees, not of the gentle folk 'round he’ah. 🙂
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I don’t know what part of the South you’re from, but we don’t use that word here in the Deep South.
 
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Richardols:
Why, sweet dear, no disrespect was meant at all. While the word might be unknown in the Great Frozen North, “mendacity” is commonly used he’ah in the South to soften the need to use a harsher term. Such raw vulgarity is the coin of D…ed Yankees, not of the gentle folk 'round he’ah. 🙂
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😃 South…you mean southern Cal.?
 
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